Description
‘Sketch of Mina Harker’ by Declan Lee
Artist: Declan Lee
Title: ‘Sketch of Mina Harker’
Medium: Red and white chalk on paper
Dimensions: 14.8″ x 11.4″
Framed: Unframed
Year of Creation: 2022
About the Artwork:
“Dracula is one of my favourite novels and one I have often thought of illustrating. In this is a sketch of the character Mina Harker. I was looking for a way to capture the gothic Victorian atmosphere using a monochrome colour scheme to reference the painterly photography of the era.” – Declan Lee
About the Artist:
(Artist Bio)
I was born in 1973 in Southport, England. After moving to Australia I studied classical art at the Adelaide Central School of Art and completed my Bachelor of Design in Illustration at the Underdale campus of the University of South Australia. After an award winning but soulless career as an Illustrator I have focused on establishing myself as an artist.
I work exclusively in pastel for its immediacy and delicate, vibrant colour. The work draws its inspiration from my interests in the esoteric symbolism and archetypal language of the Tarot, Hermeticism, Mythology and religious art that speaks to the viewer on a level that lies beyond language. Those symbols we understand intuitively, deeply rooted in the collective unconscious that find expression in dreams and myth. As they defy contrivance and seem to appear in the mind fully formed, the sketching of ideas is closer to memory than invention. Creating the finished art becomes a process of getting the ego out of the way and allowing the subject to take on a life of its own. For me beauty and truth are synonymous, and the end result should be a picture that allows the “other” to inhabit our world in all its vibrant immediacy.